1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photosensitive material drum which uses an adhesive to prevent the turn between a drum body and a flange member forcibly inserted in an end portion of the drum body, and to an image-forming machine equipped with the photosensitive material drum.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image-forming machine such as a copier or a laser printer, in general, the surface of a photosensitive material drum is uniformly electrically charged, is exposed to image-bearing light, and the electric charge is decreased in the portions corresponding to the portions exposed to light to thereby form an electrostatic latent image. A toner is fed from a developer to the electrostatic latent image to form a toner image so as to be visualized. The toner image formed on the photosensitive material drum is transferred onto a paper by using transfer means, and the paper onto which the toner image is transferred is passed through a fixing unit to fix the toner to thereby form an image. Therefore, the photosensitive material drum plays an important role in forming the image.
FIG. 8 illustrates an end portion of a photosensitive material drum of the related art.
The photosensitive material drum 51 comprises a cylindrical drum body 52, and includes an annular flange member 53 fitted into the inner peripheral surface of the drum body 52, and a bearing 54 fitted to the inside of the flange member 53. A flat earth plate 55 (see earth plate 105 in FIG. 3) is attached to the outer peripheral portion of the bearing 54 on the inner surface side of the flange member 53, and pawls 55a at the ends on the outer side of the earth plate 55 are brought into contact with the inner peripheral surface of the drum body 52.
Referring to FIG. 9, the flange member 53 is provided with a drum portion 57 and an annular protuberance 56 positioned on the outer surface side of the photosensitive material drum 51 (see FIG. 8). The drum portion 57 has protruded portions 58 and recessed portions 59 which are alternately formed in the circumferential direction thereof, and the annular protuberance 56 is forming a plurality of notches 63 therein. The portions forming the notches 63 are positioned neighboring the recessed portions 59.
In fixing the flange member 53 to the drum body 52, the drum member 52 is, in many cases, used with the flange member 53 being lightly fitted into the drum member 52 to avoid a change in the size of the drum body 52. This is because from the standpoint of space of the image-forming machine, gap pulleys such as a developing roller, a transfer roller and a charging roller are, in many cases, disposed near the portion where the flange member is forcibly inserted in the drum body 52 forming gaps relative to the drum body 52. Here, a change in the size of the drum body 52 adversely affects the image that is formed. In a state where the flange member is lightly inserted, however, the drum body 52 and the flange member 53 easily undergo the slipping relative to each other. In the image-forming machine disclosed in JP-A-8-297434, as shown in FIG. 10, an adhesive is applied onto a flange member 72 so as to adhere the flange member 72 to a drum body 71. In more detail, elastic sheets 73 are fixed to a periphery surface of the flange member 72 and the adhesive is applied to the area of the surface, where the sheets 73 are not fixed.